A Space Where Your Writing Can Thrive
Last year I finally started a writing project that I had been thinking about for a long while—if not now, when, right?—and I’m pleased to say it’s going well, knock on wood. I’ve reached the point where maybe I want to talk about it, but maybe not; it’s difficult to say. There must be a name for this period of cautious optimism when a project is still in its nascent stage, a kind of fragile embryonic form, and you’re afraid to talk about it for fear the whole thing will disappear if exposed to daylight. This is where I find myself: nurturing a fetal unicorn. An odd metaphor, sure, but oddly appropriate. It exists, and yet...it doesn’t. It’s exciting, but at the same time I know I could use some help, maybe a little encouragement.
Enter this issue’s theme. I had the inspiring experience of witnessing firsthand the real value of—and the sincere need for—writers groups during my time at the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference in Homer, Alaska, in 2018. I was giving a talk about publishing to a room of about forty writers, and I got to the part where I discuss the role of one’s first readers, the benefits of feedback, and the care with which we should all give and receive constructive criticism—in general, the importance of community, including the kind that can be found in a writing program, at a conference, or, you guessed it, in a writers group. No sooner had I said those words than a hand shot up in the back: “How can I find a writers group?” It was a great question, and fifteen minutes later I walked out into the hallway to find a large sheet of paper taped to the wall on which local writers who were interested in forming writers groups—in Anchorage, in Fairbanks, in Wasilla, in Soldotna—had written their names and e-mail addresses. At week’s end I returned to Poets & Writers with the image of that sign-up sheet in my mind and the seed of an idea to offer writers everywhere, outside of metropolitan centers and academic networks, a way to find one another. Two years later, amid a pandemic that has made peer-to-peer connection even more precious, I joined a small team of colleagues in launching Poets & Writers Groups, a technologically sophisticated version of that piece of paper on the wall in Homer.
No matter how you found—or will find—a writers group of your own, this issue’s special section provides an abundance of advice, guidance, and ideas for how to approach that, dare I say, magical space of constructive criticism, conversation, encouragement, and other indefinable, invaluable forms of support. Because no one should have to raise a unicorn alone.
